Most NDBs transmit their Morse coded callsign continuously in the LF band from 200-500KHz with low powers (usually 25 watts or less). Many enthusiasts
enjoy trying to log as many NDBs as they can. The beaconworld website
is a great place to learn more about this fascinating hobby.

About this system

This system was based on a concept by Andy Robins and uses much of his initially compiled data.
The version you are now using was designed and programmed by
and was originally created exclusively to show loggings of NDBs, however several contributors provide details of other utility signals received and so it has now been expanded to include other forms of transmission.
It provides powerful new features such as searches, log histories for signals and for contributors, together with highly automated data import facilities.
Some features (such as adding, editing or deleting signals and listeners, or the adding of log data for a listener) require the user to be 'logged on' as
an administrator. Administrator Help is provided only to logged-on administrators.

Signal Listings

[ Top ]
To access information on all types of signal, press the 'Signals' option from the main menu. Here is an example of what you might see, but note this picture is for illustrative purposes only:

The table presented shows the frequency and Callsign / IDs of all stations heard.
Click on any column heading to sort by that column. Clicking a second time reverses the sort order.
In this listing, several types of signal are shown, and these are colour-coded:

White for NDBs;

Blue for DGPS stations, always given by their reference station ID, prefixed with a # - you will need decoder software to discover these, then use the lookup tool on the tools menu to find that station reference ID;

Green for Amateur Radio beacons;

Orange for Time Signal stations;

Pink for NAVTEX stations, always given in this format: $NNA where NN is the Nav Area (as a number - use 17 for Polar) and A is the station identifier letter;

Cyan for other Utility stations;

Grey is used to indicate Stations reported as 'Off the air' (OTA). These are always shown at the very bottom of any listing, normally on the last few pages of results if you are not listing all results at once.

Displayed Columns:
Note that LSB, USB, Sec and Fmt are only shown if NDBs are included in the listing.

Column

Description

KHz

Carrier frequency of the signal. In North America all but a very few NDBs transmit on channels spaced 1KHz apart.
Exceptions include RPB-414.5 and SJX-381.5. NDBs outside North America often use 0.5KHz channel spacing. Amateur radio beacons often use much smaller channel spacing.

ID

Morse callsign or DGPS Ident (where prefixed with #).
Click on the ID for any signal to open a window showing details for that station.

LSB

Where NDBs transmit a modulated Morse coded tone, this is the upper sideband offset, relative to the carrier frequency.
Usually around 400Hz in Canada and 1020Hz in USA. In France most NDBs transmit no tones at all but use straight CW on/off keying.

USB

In Canada, federally-run NDBs use only USB though some private NDBs (with numbers in their callsigns) also transmit an LSB. Most US stations transmit both sidebands, and some only transmit the lower sideband.

Sec

The time in seconds for the ident cycle to be transmitted. Where two values are shown, the first is for the ident part of the cycle, the second is for the entire cycle to repeat.

Fmt

The format used when transmitting the signal. Some of these include:

DAID - Dash after ID.

DA3ID - Dash after third ID.

DBID - Dash before ID.

TWEB - an aero beacon that also transmits voice weather broadcasts.

QTH

QTH is an Amateur Radio abbreviation meaning 'Location'.

S/P

State or Province code for the state or province in which the station is located.

List of US states, Canadian provinces and in the case of other countries, country codes indicating where the station is known to have been received.

Logs

Shows the number of Loggings held in the system for each station. Click to see all loggings listed, with distances.

Last Logged

Date last reported to this system (in YYYY-MM-DD format).

Customising the report:
Above the results table is a form allowing you to tailor the report produced.

Customise Report

Show

of 320 records.

Heard In
---OR---Heard By

AnyAll

Frequencies

- KHz
S/P:ITU:ID:

Types

DGPS

Ham

NAVTEX

NDB

Time

Other

Show, Back, Next and Jump To Page:
The results are 'paged' to make them load faster with slower connections, but you can choose to show all results, jump backwards or forwards, or go
straight to a particular page.

Heard In:
You can enter values in the 'Heard In' box to show only those signals heard in specific US States, Canadian Provinces or other countries.

To show signals heard in Ontario, Michigan and France, enter ON MI FRA in the 'Heard In' box and select 'All'.

To show signals heard in Ontario, Michigan or Illinois, enter ON MI IL in the 'Heard In' box and select 'Any'.

Heard By:
You can also values in the 'Heard By' box to show only those signals heard by specific listeners at given locations

To show signals heard by Andy Robins, select his name in the drop down box. This disables the 'Heard In' box since you cannot use both functions at once.

When you choose a specific listener in the drop-down box, two new columns are shown in the results - DX in KM and in Miles.

Frequencies:
You can limit the results to show only signals in a certain frequency range by entering values in either (or both) of the two frequency boxes.

State / Province:
You can limit the results to show only signals located in a specific state or province by entering values in the S/P box.

ID:
If you type a Y in this box, only signals containing a Y in their callsign will be displayed.
If you type DIW, only signals whose callsigns are DIW are shown.
The _ symbol is a 'wildcard' character, so if you wanted to show all signals with three letters whose callsigns start with Y and end with Y you would enter Y_Y.
To show only DGPS stations (whose idents are always shown in this system prefixed with a #) you could simply type in a #.

Types:
By default the system will only show NDBs, hoever you can select other forms of transmission to see these displayed.

Combining settings for powerful searches:
Any of the settings can be used in combination for sophisticated searched.
Here are two examples from the RNA system:

Example 1 displays all three-letter NDBs starting and ending with a Y between 198 and 500KHz located in Ontario Canada and heard in Ontario OR Michigan, sorted by ID.

Detailed information for Each Signal
To see detailed information for any given station, click on the station's ID. This opens a popup window giving more details.

Loggings for Each Signal
To see actual loggings for any given signal, click on the station's ID as before, then click on the Logs tab in the window that opens where available to see
a comprehensive list of all loggings with time and date, listener and listener location, and automatically calculated distances in both Miles and KM.

Listener Listings

To see a list of listeners whose logs are included in the reports, click the Listeners tab on the main menu.

Once again, all columns are sortable by clicking on the column heading.

You can limit displayed results to specific listeners, states or callsigns.

Click on a listener's name to see details on that listener.

Click on a listener's callsign to run a search for information in the QRZ database relating to that callsign.

Click on a listener's GSQ to see a map of the location they are based in.

The Logs column indicates the number of loggings by that listener held in the system.

To see actual loggings by a listener, click on the listeners name as described above, then in the window that appears, click the
Logs tab (if available) to see a list of all loggings in the system by that person.

Getting YOUR log information included

The best way to do this is to subscribe to the NDB List at http://www.ndblist.info - it's free and open only to bonafide NDB DXers. You will have to search through information at the beaconworld site, but that's part of the test for joining! Once you are subscribed to the NDBList, post your logs to the list and the editor managing the system (see below) will import your posted logs into the system. This process automatically assigns GSQ, State / Province, Country and even DX in KM and Miles automatically.

When publishing your logs it would be very helpful if you use a text format using spaces NOT Tabs to separate columns,
and format it for a fixed point size font such as Courier. Please remember to prefix any offset values that are approximate with a ~ symbol to indicate that the values are approximate only.

Here are some valid examples, starting with the absolute ideal (as far as I'm concerned) - this format
includes all data interpretted by the system

Date (full date including year means less work for the person importing the log and also less chance of errors)

Time (always UTC!)

KHz

Call / ID

Offsets (use ~ to indicate approximate values) and format

Time of cycle in seconds

It also includes additional fields (SP, ITU, QTH) to make the posted message more meaningful to other readers,
and also to help the editor deal with possible ambiguities (e.g. two stations called CO on 407KHz):

...even this extremely simple log works well, but obviously time and offset information is not captured, so be aware of possible ambiguities:

My log for July 22nd 2004
AKW
ADK
GAV

Dealing with Ambiguities:
Provided there is no ambiguity in the details (i.e. two stations exist with the same callsign), a log as simple as the last one shown is acceptable. Be aware however where you fail to give a frequency and the callsign is used on more
than one station, as in the case of CB to at least specify what state the transmitter is in. In some rare cases there may be more than one station with the same callsign AND frequency - e.g. 407-CO (there's one in CO and one in MO) - in these rare cases a nore saying which one you believe you heard would be useful.

Relevant Fields:
The only details interpretted by RNA / REU's import system are Date (UTC and may be shown in vitually any format imaginable),
time (UTC hhmm or hh:mm), KHZ, callsign (for DGPS stations use the Station ID prefixed with a # - see the Tools menu for a lookup tool), LSB and USB.

Please try and avoid using tabs and use a fixed spacing type font such as Courier to format your results wherever possible
as this makes it MUCH easier for the system editor to import results into the system. Any other fields you include (such as GSQ, 'New', Location, State etc) are
best shown at the end of the table.

If in doubt...
Please post a short log to the list or email it to the system editor (see bottom of page) and see if it validates correctly. This will save a LOT of time in the long run and some logs are MUCH easier to read than other requiring extensive modification by the editor prior to processing.